Morning Cup of Murder (11 page)

With that task completed, she returned her attention to her furious thoughts about Jason. Really, she was angrier with herself than with him. Of course he was going to toy with her; it was his nature to do so. The problem was her reaction to him. Why did it seem like whenever she was within a few feet of him she turned into the sort of simpering idiot she had always despised? While other girls allowed their hearts to rule their heads, Lacy had remained sensible, always following her head. Even with Robert she had first made a list of pros and cons before going out with him. Only when she deemed he was an adequate risk did she say yes to his request for a date.

But with Jason she completely lost her mind the minute she looked into his beautiful face. He smelled perfect. He looked perfect. The only problem was that he
wasn’t
perfect. Far from it--he was a mess for myriad reasons that leapt to the surface of her brain whenever she thought of him. Whereas with Robert she had turned a blind eye to his faults and deluded herself into believing he was okay, she had no such difficulty seeing the reality of Jason. Like a cardboard cutout of a model, he was all looks and no substance. She would have an easier time making a list of his faults than his assets. There was no way she could delude herself into thinking he was perfect; he wasn’t. And yet she couldn’t seem to get enough of him.

She crawled into bed, placing the journals on the pillow beside her. Before she could open them, her thoughts turned suddenly to Tosh. How odd that she should trust him after just meeting him, but she did. She had probably shared more of herself with him tonight than she had anyone except her grandmother.

And that was her final thought until the sun filtered through her window the next morning. Lacy woke with a start and looked at the pillow beside her, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw the journals lying sedately on the pillow. How could she have fallen asleep when she her only purpose last night had been to read those journals?

Her stomach rumbled, further delaying her purpose as she rolled out of bed and trudged to the kitchen for some food. Her grandmother’s prune cake greeted her, offering up familiar comfort. Lacy picked up a fork and dug in, not waiting to cut a piece and put it on a plate.

Only after her belly was uncomfortably full did she realize how much of the cake she had eaten. She groaned and shoved the half-empty cake pan away from her. Now she would have to run in order to try and circumvent the calorie overload she had just consumed.

She took her time changing into her workout clothes, willing her food to digest so she wouldn’t get sick while she ran. If there was one thing she hated more than running, it was running on a full stomach. Just as she was about to leave her room, she turned and caught sight of the journals. Maybe Jason was making her paranoid, but she thought maybe she should hide them on the off chance that someone came looking for them. Her first instinct was to shove them under her mattress, but if she had thought to look there at Barbara Blake’s house, someone would most likely think of searching for them in the same place here. Instead she searched her closet for a loose board she remembered from her youth.

A distant cousin had once shown her the hiding place, and they had spent a happy afternoon pretending to be spies, hiding secret messages in the small space. The boards were warped when Lacy tried to pry them up, forcing her to retrieve a hammer from the garage. After painstakingly pulling it up, she slipped the journals inside and pushed the board back into place.

“There,” she said out loud, dusting her hands on her pants. With her task completed, she forced herself to leave the house and jog the circuitous three miles she had staked out during her first week in town. Ideally, running three miles four times a week was what Lacy needed to keep her figure in tact. Without giving up the foods that she loved, she would never be skinny. But she liked her body as it was. Her hourglass figure was shapely, but she firmly believed women were supposed to have curves.

As she let herself in, the phone started to ring. She paused in front of the answering machine, vowing to take a hammer to it if she heard Ed McNeil’s voice once again.

“Lacy, it’s Jason.” His voice sounded groggy, as if he had just rolled out of bed and dialed. “I wanted to make sure you’re okay. Last night was…intense. Catch you later.”

Almost as soon as his message ended, the phone started to ring again. She lunged for it, fumbling it to her ear. “Hello,” she blurted.

“Lacy, it’s Tosh. I’m calling to make sure you’re not in the slammer. How did last night go?”

“Not well,” she said, sinking into a kitchen chair. “I got hit over the head and knocked out.”

“Are you kidding me? You could have been killed.”

“That’s what Jason said.”

“Jason,” he repeated.

“He showed up right after I got knocked out.”

“So he saved you,” he said.

“I suppose,” she drawled, not understanding his dry tone.

“Did you at least find anything helpful?”

“I found some journals,” she said with no idea why she was sharing such vital information with a man who was, for all intents and purposes, a complete stranger.

Tosh whistled. “Nice. I was also calling with some potentially good news. Apparently the deceased was a longtime member of my new church. I’ve been asked to do the funeral. There’s a viewing tonight, and the service is tomorrow. Maybe if you show up and circulate you might find out something useful.”

“Tosh, that’s brilliant,” Lacy replied. “Thank you.”

“I was also calling to ask a favor of you. As far as I can tell, you seem to be the person in town who knows the most about Barbara Blake. Since this is my first funeral, and since I’ve never met the woman, I was wondering if you might be able to meet with me and impart some information about her.”

“I would be glad to, but I have to warn you: most of what I know is pretty bad.”

“At this point anything is better than the nothing I have. I’ll do my best to put a positive spin on things. Can you do supper again?”

“Okay,” she stammered, not sure how she found herself going out with this newcomer for a second night in a row.

“Great. We’ll have to eat early and quickly because the viewing starts at six.”

“No problem,” she assured him. “I’m skipping lunch today. I just ate my body weight in cake.”

“That sounds good,” he said.

“I’ll bring you some. I need to get it out of the house.”

“Awesome. Later, Lacy.”

“Later, Tosh.” She hung up and stared at the phone so that she startled when it rang almost immediately.

“Hello,”
Grand Central Station,
she added mentally.

“Lacy, it’s Travis from the jail. Is this a bad time?”

“No, not at all.”
Apparently this is my morning to receive gentleman callers.
“How are you?” She bit her lip, hoping he wasn’t calling to ask her out again. She didn’t want to have to reject him again.

“I’m good, and I have some good news for you. I spent a long time talking to your grandmother yesterday. She’s agreed to see you this morning during visiting hours.”

Lacy sat up, gripping the phone tightly to her ear. “Travis, that’s amazing. How did you convince her?”

“I may have embellished your emotional state a little bit. It might be a good idea to work up a few tears before you see her,” he suggested.

The back of her head throbbed, and she winced as tears of pain filled her eyes. .”I don’t think that will be a problem. Travis, how can I ever thank you for this? This is possibly one of the sweetest things anyone has ever done for me.”

“I can think of one way,” Travis said. There was a breathless pause while she waited for him to continue. “Pick me up a coffee on your way in. I’m working overtime, and I’m zonked.”

She smiled and relaxed. “Sure thing. I’ll see you at ten. And, Travis, thank you.”

“No problem, Lacy. See you later.”

They disconnected, and Lacy sat back, feeling a bit overwhelmed. Three phone calls from three different men in the space of thirty minutes was definitely not a part of her normal routine. Maybe there was something to be said for living in a small town. Here she was a big fish in a little pond, and it was apparently mating season.

Her nose wrinkled at the unbidden imagery her thought created. “Gross,” she murmured. Dispelling all thoughts of fish from her mind, she walked to the bathroom and took a lengthy shower.

A half hour later she was prepared to emerge from the house, clean, refreshed, and ready to start her day. She had even listened to the weather forecast, found out it was supposed to be humid, and secured her hair in a braid down her back. People with wavy strawberry-blond hair know better than to let their hair have free reign on humid days. If she let her hair have its way, by noon she would be able to try out for the starring role in
Annie.
She opened the door and swallowed a yelp of surprise when she ran into a solid form on the front porch.

“You didn’t answer your phone,” Jason said accusingly. He was scowling at her, but it was difficult to take him seriously when his lustrous black hair stuck up in patches all over his head. Apparently she wasn’t the only one with hair humidity issues.

“I didn’t know your hair was naturally curly,” she blurted, staring at his head.

He used his hand to try and tame his locks to no avail. “I haven’t showered yet. I just woke up and had a mini panic attack, wondering if you made it through the night. How’s the head?” Now it was his turn to stare at her hair. “Nice braid.”

Since she wasn’t sure if the compliment was sincere or sarcastic, she ignored it. “It hurts, but I took some pain reliever from the eighties, so it should start feeling better any minute now.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.”

As they stood on the porch inspecting each other, an awkward silence descended between them. “Have you eaten?” she asked for lack of something better to say.

“Since I rolled out of bed, called you, and then hopped in my car, you mean? The answer is no,” he said grumpily.

She turned and led the way back inside. “Come on. Sit down.” She pointed toward the kitchen table. “Do you like prune cake?”

His lip curled. “I don’t know. It sounds awful.”

Offended by his mockery of her favorite food, she retrieved a clean fork from the drawer, scooped a bite of cake onto it, and shoved the whole thing in his mouth. He grabbed her hand and plucked the fork from it, but dutifully chewed and swallowed the cake.

“All right, that’s pretty good,” he admitted. “But I can’t just eat sugar for breakfast. Do you have any eggs?”

“Are you actually suggesting that I cook for you?” she asked.

“After I drove all the way over here to check on you? You’d better believe it.” He leaned back and grinned at her, lacing his fingers behind his head and propping his feet out in front of him.

She stared at him, trying to decide if she was going to refuse his request, but the longer she gazed at him, the better he looked. After a few beats, she gave up, turned toward the fridge, and retrieved the eggs.

“Do you have any coffee?” he asked.

“I usually get my coffee from the café,” she said.

“Does that mean you don’t have any?”

“I do have coffee, but I don’t know how to make it,” she admitted sheepishly. Since her freshman year of college, she had always bought coffee already made by someone else.

Jason stood and shuffled to the counter where he began opening cupboards until he located the coffee. “C’mere,” he said, grabbing her wrist and pulling her toward him. “The water goes here.” He poured water into the back of the pot. “Then you put in a filter and add coffee--one tablespoon for every two cups. I’m making eight cups, so that’s four tablespoons of coffee. Close this, push the button, and that’s it.”

If his tone had been condescending, she would have come back with a sarcastic reply. Instead he had spoken sincerely and patiently. “That doesn’t look so hard,” she said meekly.

He smiled at her and glanced at the eggs. “Do you know how to make eggs, or should I do those, too?” There was the condescension that had been missing from the coffee lecture.

“Sit.” She shoved at his chest. “I can make eggs. I can make many things. My grandma taught me to cook and bake.”

“But not to make coffee,” he said.

“She doesn’t drink it since my grandfather died, and I was too embarrassed to ask for a lesson. It’s such a simple thing; I should already have known how to do it.”

“Now you know,” he said. He resumed his seat at the kitchen table and watched her while she deftly cracked a few eggs into a bowl and stirred them with a whisk. She didn’t ask him how many he wanted, instinctively knowing that three was the correct number. He smiled when her whole body wiggled as she used the whisk. “I like my eggs well beaten,” he said when she put down the whisk.

She paused to look at him over her shoulder. “Weird,” she muttered, then she picked up the whisk and resumed stirring. After another minute, she turned to look at him again. “Is that enough whisking?”

“For now,” he said, smiling wider when she gave him a look that told him she thought he was crazy.

He continued to study her as she devoted herself to the eggs, turning them, salting them, and then removing them from the heat at just the right moment as if she knew he liked his eggs slightly moist. She slid them onto a plate, added a generous serving of prune cake, poured him a cup of coffee, and set both plate and cup before him.